Predator

‘Of course,’ Agatha replied with her usual unflappable efficiency.

‘Thanks. And then I need to talk to Imbiss and the O’Quinns, but in person. So please track them down and wherever they are in the world, tell them they need to be in London by lunchtime tomorrow.’

‘What if there aren’t any flights?’

‘Send a plane. Send one for each of them if you have to. But they have to be here.’

‘Don’t worry, sir, they will be.’

‘Thank you, Agatha. If anyone else said that, I’d think they were probably bluffing. But I can absolutely count on you getting my people here. None of them would dare say no to you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The thought of having his best people around him raised Cross’s spirits. Dave Imbiss didn’t look like a man you’d want beside you in the heat of battle. No matter how hard he worked at his fitness, he still had a plump, fresh-faced demeanour. But that appearance was deceptive. Imbiss’s bulk was all muscle, not fat. He’d been awarded a Bronze Star for heroism in combat when serving as a US Infantry captain in Afghanistan and he had brains as well as brawn. Imbiss was Cross Bow’s resident techie, a master in the dark arts of cyber-warfare, surveillance, hacking and all-purpose gadgetry. Paddy O’Quinn was leaner, edgier, a quick-witted, hot-tempered Irishman who’d served under Cross in the SAS until he’d punched a junior officer whose decisions under fire were threatening to cost his entire fifteen-man troop their lives. That mutinous blow saved those soldiers’ lives, cost O’Quinn his military career and made him the first name on Cross’s list when he began recruiting for Cross Bow.

Paddy O’Quinn was as tough as they came, but he had met his match – and more – in his wife. Anastasia Voronova O’Quinn was a beautiful blonde who looked like a supermodel, fought like a demon and could drink any man under the table. Nastiya, as her friends were allowed to call her, had been trained in the arts of subterfuge and deceit by the FSB, the Russian security agency that was the post-Communist successor to the KGB, while the Spetsnaz – Russian Special Forces – had taught her how to inflict pain and, if necessary, death in a myriad different ways. As good as his men were, Cross believed that he could still more than match them. But even he would think twice before picking a fight with Nastiya.

Together they had already beaten Johnny Congo once. Now they would do it a second time. And then they’d never have to do it again.

D’Shonn Brown had said nothing remotely incriminating. There was as yet no evidence whatever to suggest that he had done anything wrong. On that basis, any suggestion that he had been involved in Johnny Congo’s escape could reasonably be taken as unjustified and even racially biased. But Malinga couldn’t shake a feeling that hung around the back of his mind like an itch that needed scratching: a cop’s intuition that he had just witnessed a slick, proficient, shameless display of lying. He wasn’t going to voice that suspicion publicly just yet. He wasn’t that dumb. But still, it meant that he could approach his interview with Shelby Weiss primed for any hint that Johnny Congo’s attorney had something to hide.

If Brown’s working environment was an exercise in contemporary design, Weiss’s was far more traditional: wood panelling on the walls; bookshelves full of august legal tomes; all the vanity portraits that Brown had conspicuously avoided. The one thing they had in common was the framed diplomas. But whereas D’Shonn Brown’s education had been as close to Ivy League as you could get west of the Appalachians; Weiss took a perverse pride in the fact that he had studied his law in the relatively humble surroundings of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, a public college right in the heart of Houston on Cleburne Street. He wanted people to know that however slick he might look now, he’d started out as a blue-collar kid, working his way up from nothing by ability, determination and damned hard work. Juries lapped it up. Malinga had seen the Shelby Weiss Show enough times in enough courtrooms not to give a damn, one way or the other.

‘This is a change,’ Weiss said as he shook Malinga’s hand. ‘I’ve cross-examined you enough times, Bobby. Don’t recall that you’ve ever asked questions of me.’

‘First time for everything,’ Malinga said, settling into a padded leather chair that was a lot more comfortable than the ones in front of D’Shonn Brown’s desk. ‘So, Mr Weiss,’ he went on, ‘can you confirm that you visited Johnny Congo at the Allen B. Polunsky Unit on the twenty-seventh of October?’

‘I can.’

‘And what was the substance of your discussion with Congo?’

Weiss grinned. ‘Oh, come on, you know perfectly well that client–attorney privilege prevents me from answering that question.’

‘But you discussed his legal situation in general?’

‘Of course! I’m a lawyer. That’s what we do.’

‘So how would you characterize his legal situation at that point? I mean, were you confident of being able to delay his execution?’

‘Well, the man was a convicted killer, who’d used up all his appeals on his original charge before absconding from the State Penitentiary, spending several years on the run and then being apprehended. What would you say his chances were of a stay of execution?’

‘Worse than zero.’

‘Precisely. Anyone can figure that out, including Johnny Congo. Nevertheless, anyone is entitled to the best defence, again including Johnny Congo. So I assured him that I would use my very best endeavours to keep him out of the chamber.’

‘And did you use those endeavours?’

‘Absolutely. I made every call I could think of, right up to the Governor and beyond. Burned a lot of favours and, believe me, I’m not exactly Mr Popular right now, not after someone turned Route 190 into a war zone.’

‘Did Congo pay you for doing that work on his behalf?’

‘Sure he paid me. I don’t represent a man like that pro bono.’

‘How much did he pay you?’

‘I don’t have to tell you that.’ There was a glass jar of brightly coloured jelly beans standing on Weiss’s desk. He unscrewed the lid and tilted the open jar in Malinga’s direction: ‘Want one?’

‘Nope.’

‘Suit yourself. So, where were we?’

‘You were explaining how you couldn’t tell me how much Johnny Congo paid you.’

‘Oh yeah …’

‘But you can confirm that you paid two million dollars on Johnny Congo’s behalf to D’Shonn Brown, and don’t tell me that’s privileged because I know it ain’t. D’Shonn Brown is not your client. Any conversation with him or payment to him constitutes admissible evidence.’

Weiss popped a couple of jelly beans into his mouth. ‘I wouldn’t insult an experienced senior officer like you by pretending otherwise. Yes, I gave Mr Brown the money. You can ask him what he did with it.’

‘Already have. I’m more interested in what you said when you gave it to him.’

‘I just passed on Mr Congo’s instructions.’

‘Which were?’

‘Let me see …’ Weiss leaned back and gazed upwards as if Johnny Congo’s words might be written or even projected on to the ceiling. Then he focused back on Malinga. ‘As I recall, Mr Congo wanted Mr Brown to gather up all the people he used to hang out with back in the day, so that they could pay their respects to him and see him off.’ Weiss chuckled to himself.

‘What’s so funny?’ Malinga asked.

‘D’Shonn Brown’s a sharp kid. He told me that Johnny’s buddies wouldn’t be able to see him go, but they’d sure see him coming, seeing as most of them were already dead. I could see his point. But that didn’t alter Mr Congo’s wishes. He basically wanted to have a lavish funeral, with a service in a cathedral and a long line of hearses and limousines, followed by a party with Cristal champagne and Grey Goose vodka – he specified those brands.’

‘And this was going to cost two million dollars?’

‘Evidently. Congo wanted Mr Brown to, quote, “lay it on real thick” and he wanted to “impress upon him” – and that’s another direct quote, I remember being struck by the formality – that this was all the wish of a dying man.’

‘And what conclusion did you draw from these instructions?’

‘That they were exactly what they appeared: a convicted criminal with a lot of money wanting to give society the finger one last time.’

‘You had no reason to doubt that Johnny Congo was planning to attend his own funeral?’

‘Well, he was laying out a fortune on it, and the state of Texas was absolutely determined to execute him, so no, why would I?’

‘He’d got away before.’

‘All the more reason that people like you were going to make sure he didn’t again. Are we done?’ Shelby Weiss had suddenly lost his carefully worked air of relaxed bonhomie, just the way D’Shonn Brown had done.

‘Almost,’ said Malinga, more than ever certain that there was something both of them were hiding. ‘Just one last thing I want to clear up. How come Johnny Congo called you?’